These Precious Illusions
by Rikkitsune
Summary: A few years after her return from the Labyrinth, Sarah embarks a mission of bringing its story to the world in the hope it will repair the damage she caused. Numerous encounters with the Goblin King over the span of more than a decade eventually convince Sarah that he wants something other than revenge.
1. Spring, 1993

_**Author's Note:** I originally wrote this fic for the 2011 Livejournal Labyrinth Fanfiction Exchange. It's taken me until now to revise it and upload it here. __I will be putting chapters up as I go through the notes from my beta-reader and make amendments accordingly. I'm aiming for weekly updates._

_I had no idea that the fic was going to take the direction it did. It jumps around a bit, I hope you can stick with it right till the end. I decided to try writing a fic from the "Sarah and Jareth are real, but were played by actors in the movie" angle, which meant constructing a timeline that actually saw Sarah run the Labyrinth in 1974, twelve years before the 1986 film._

_I make no apologies for taking liberties with 1990s recording artists, nor for the fact that my writing may show influences from certain books I was reading when I wrote this. :D _

_Many thanks to jamethiel_bane, who is a far better writer than I will ever be and agreed to take on the MASSIVE task of beta-reading this fic because she is a kind-hearted soul (and also because I begged her)._

_Rated M for lime, references to mental health and adult themes in future chapters._

* * *

**_Spring, 1993_**

* * *

With a sigh and a satisfied smile, Sarah set her guitar down beside her and hit the 'stop' button on the Talkboy tape recorder. It was 1 o'clock. Time to stop and have lunch. She promised Toby she would eat the sandwich he had made for her today. Peanut butter and jelly with the crusts cut off, her favourite. He did tend to spoil her when it came to food.

"Rough. But it'll have to do," she muttered to herself, picking up a piece of paper lying on the desk in front of her and scanning the handwritten lyrics on it. She didn't have Toby's talent with the strings, but her song writing abilities were pretty stellar, if she did say so herself.

Sarah prayed that the lyrics were to her client's liking. She'd requested an upbeat kind of song, centred around wishing for a 'dream lover' to rescue her from her previous bad relationships.

The lyrics weren't as dark as what Sarah ordinarily preferred to write, but her newest client was tipped to emerge as the next big pop super-power, now that she'd just landed - er -_married_ the head of Columbia Records. Sarah certainly didn't want to alienate a potentially long-term, successful customer just because of her own creative preferences.

She pulled the little tape out of the recorder, labelled it 'Dream Lover' and dropped it into a large brown envelope stuffed with papers. The courier was due in half an hour.

Beside her the phone rang, loud in the silent studio, making her jump. Shoving her hair behind her ears, Sarah snatched it up.

"Sarah Williams."

"Sarah! Robyn Crawford."

Sarah smiled, she liked Robyn. "How are you?"

"I'm well," Robyn answered. "Have you had a chance to tweak those lyrics I sent back to you?"

"Ye-e-es," Sarah replied, drawing out the word into three syllables as she scrabbled among the papers and folders on the desk in front of her, looking for the Houston portfolio. "Just give me two seconds, I have it right here."

"Busy day?" Robyn sounded amused. She could obviously hear the shuffling papers.

"Busy _month_," Sarah corrected her. "Tobe and I barely see each other anymore – he does so much session work, ships passing in the night and all that. Then there's the kids… aha! Here it is!"

Sarah pulled the slim manila folder out from under a pile of papers and flicked it open on her lap, shouldering the chunky olive green receiver as she thumbed through the contents.

"I added an element of longing and imagining, I tried to make it angsty while still keeping a hopeful tone," Sarah went on after a short pause. "Did you want me to read out the new chorus?"

"It's ok Sarah, I know you're flat out," Robyn answered. "Just send it over to me and we'll go from there."

"All right." Sarah was somewhat relieved she didn't have to do any extra work. Her wrists and elbows were aching already and she was sure she had another tension knot in her shoulder. She slouched in her chair, letting her head hang over the cushioned back. Her attention was beginning to wander, a sure sign that she needed a break.

She'd just get through this phone call and then she was _definitely_ stopping for that sandwich.

"-all right? I'll let Whitney know where we're at and we'll contact you when the courier brings the package over," Robyn was saying.

"No problem." _I hope I didn't miss anything important..._

They rang off and Sarah struggled upright, dropping the receiver back into the cradle and turning her answering machine on. She paused to take a breath, then spun around in her chair as she heard a noise at the studio door. It wasn't the courier, as she'd expected, but the ordinary post. A large bundle of letters held together by elastic bands appeared through the brass mail slot and fell onto the inside doormat with a papery _thwump_. Sarah heaved herself out of her chair with a groan and shuffled across the room to retrieve them.

Opening the mail was high on Sarah's list of Least Favourite Things To Do, but the thought of missing a bill was, frankly, terrifying. Sometimes the knowledge that she was supposed to be a responsible adult was a bit much to handle.

Grimacing as her stomach rumbled loudly, Sarah turned and headed towards the studio's tiny kitchen, sorting through the stack of envelopes. _Bill, bill, library reminder... _A sudden smile lit her features when she saw an Ottawa postmark. The heavy blue envelope was addressed to her and Toby. _Real_ mail, hopefully! Ripping it open, she saw that it was a nice long letter from her friend, Alanis. She dropped the rest of the post onto the kitchen bench and unwrapped her sandwich one-handed. Taking a massive, satisfying bite, she began to read as she walked back to her desk.

Sarah and Toby had met Alanis in Ottawa a couple of years ago, where they'd been taking some time out after a massive production project. Their quiet, uneventful winter retreat had suddenly become loud and interesting when Alanis accidentally spilled her coffee in Toby's lap at a local diner.

They'd got to talking while everybody in the immediate vicinity tried to help mop up a beet-red and mortified Toby (ah, seventeen year old boys and their pathological fear of being the centre of attention...) and Alanis had reacted with guileless delight when she found out that the two of them did song-writing and session work. She'd then proceeded to regale them with stories about her current foray into the music world, talking a mile a minute. Looking back, Sarah knew it had come from Alanis' hatred of awkward silences, rather than a need to boast.

At that moment in time, Alanis was four months into a two-record deal with the Canadian branch of MCA Records and was just about to release her first album. Sarah, for her part, found her friend's enthusiasm refreshing, since the industry had turned her jaded years ago. Once his pants were as clean and dry as they could be, Toby, predictably, wanted to know all about what kind of instrumentals were going to be featured on the album and who'd been called in to record.

Two years later, the three of them still kept in touch and caught up in person whenever they could. Toby, of course, was far too dense to notice the rather obvious torch Alanis carried for him. Despite the two of them being the same age, Toby acted more like a man twenty years older and was totally immersed in his work. So naturally, a nineteen year old girl's affections didn't even register on Toby's great and lordly consciousness, much to Sarah's amusement.

She supposed her obliviousness to anything emotional had rubbed off on him.

_Hi Sarah, hi Toby,_

_Guess what! I'm moving to Toronto! Can you believe it? I barely can._

_My deal with MCA ended – seemed they didn't want to keep me after the second album didn't do so well. I don't care though, because they introduced me to this guy Scott Welch. He's my manager now. He thought it might be a good idea to move to Toronto, to get my career going. And I thought, why not? What have I got to lose?_

_Once we get there, we're going to start approaching producers and get to work on my next album. I'm sure this is going to be the big one – the songs are already pretty much sketched out and I really love them! I'll send you a demo when we get done in the studio of course, but I'm not sure when that will be at this stage._

_Anyway, I got this fragment in my head the other night and couldn't sleep till I'd scribbled it down. I thought I'd share it with you guys, see what you think. I don't know where it'll fit on the new album – maybe I'll save it for when I'm an international star! Haha!_

_Love you guys (and pick up a pen sometime, all right?),_

_Alanis xxx_

A few lines of lyrics were scribbled at the bottom of the letter.

_these precious illusions in my head _

_did not let me down when I was a kid _

_and parting with them is like parting with a childhood best friend_

Sarah stared through the window above her desk with a lopsided grin, the letter dangling at her side in relaxed fingers. She could see _her_ childhood best friends, a grumpy dwarf, a gentle giant and a bossy knight. And of course…

Images of thunder, lightning and glitter danced across her mind. As well as a devastating, crooked smile with too-sharp teeth. Dropping the letter and her sandwich, Sarah snagged her notebook and a pen and began to write, caught in a rush of creative energy.

As the page began to fill with her rapid scrawl, a graceful, gloved hand smoothed down Sarah's hair and began to rub her shoulder. "You are working too hard again, precious," a soft male voice murmured. "We are missing you _dreadfully_."

Sarah looked up towards the owner of the hand with an affectionate smile. His magic hands always knew exactly where her tension knots were. "Time is money, money is power. You know that."

"Ah, because we are in desperate need of both money and power." The hand massaged for a while longer, then began to creep down the front of Sarah's shirt. She swatted it away playfully.

"The courier will be here any minute, and _you_ are disrupting my artistic flow."

One dark, sexy chuckle later, Sarah found herself sitting on the edge of her desk, with her legs wrapped around a slim, masculine waist.

"That's cheating," she admonished him half-heartedly, her hands already moving. She deftly unlaced the white poet's shirt in front of her, pulling it out of the tight grey breeches below and splaying her fingers on the smooth, pale uncovered skin. "Using your other-worldly wiles to win an argument is hardly fair."

"Playing _fair_ is so very boring beloved, don't you think?" was his response. Sarah lifted her arms obediently as her shirt was tugged off over her head. "We wouldn't have nearly as much sex, for one thing. The courier shall arrive when I say so. In the meantime..."

On the end of Sarah's desk, the half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich lay forgotten.

* * *

_Reviews are love!_

**Chapter 2:** At the beginning of Sarah's final year of high school in the fall of 1976, there had been a creative writing contest at her high school. 'What the hell,' Sarah thought. 'I'll enter. What harm could it do?'_  
_

_OH YES, BACK-STORY IS COMING.  
_


	2. Winter 1974 to Fall 1976

_**Author's Note: **OK, I know that I'm late, and I know that this is a short chapter. My apologies! Real life has a nasty habit of getting in my way. I'm hoping to get another chapter up over the weekend to compensate._

_As I mentioned before, this fic is completely written, and I will be putting chapters up as I go through the notes from my beta-reader and make amendments accordingly. I'm aiming for weekly updates. Roughly. *cough*_

_Many thanks to jamethiel_bane, who is a far better writer than I will ever be and agreed to take on the MASSIVE task of beta-reading this fic because she is a kind-hearted soul (and also because I begged her)._

_Rated M for lime, references to mental health and adult themes in future chapters._

* * *

Upon her return from the Labyrinth on that rainy winter night in 1974, Sarah was overtaken with a burning, explicable urge to write her extraordinary experiences down. She couldn't allow a single detail be lost to the passage of time. It was somehow urgent and something that couldn't be put off until later.

So, after the victory party, while the feathers, tufts of goblin hair and scraps of paper streamers still littered her bedroom floor, Sarah sat down at her vanity table with the cloth-bound journal Karen had given her for her birthday, and painstakingly wrote down the whole thirteen hour adventure from start to finish. At a loss for a name, she simply titled it _Labyrinth_, intending to come back and revise it later.

It took an entire day and night to write and the experience was... more than a little wince-worthy. For posterity's sake, Sarah decided to be completely honest in her depiction of herself and her journey. She wasn't sure she could live with herself otherwise. Ironically, being truthful about herself and her own shortcomings was far easier said than done. Self-growth, it seemed, did not stop in the castle beyond the Goblin City.

After the manuscript was done, Sarah got down to the serious and all-consuming business of being a 'normal' sophomore and then, a 'normal' junior. School, Toby and her friends became the rightful focus of her life. Gradually, her toys and costumes were packed away to make room for books, records, posters and the latest fashions.

Her friends often joked about the armour-clad figurine in the tattered cloak that stood on her bedside table, but somehow, Sarah could never bring herself to put it away with everything else.

* * *

An inter-district creative writing contest kicked off the beginning of Sarah's senior year in the fall of 1976. The prize was a tidy little cheque and a letter of reference from the head of the English faculty - invaluable to students wanting to study English or creative writing in college.

_What the hell_, Sarah thought. _I'll enter. What harm could it do?_ She already had a complete fantasy epic written, after all. What did she have to lose?

The _Labyrinth _manuscript was where she'd left it almost two years previously, lying benignly in her vanity drawer keeping company with her hair ribbons and neglected tubes of lipstick.

Sarah's initial plan was to submit the story as it was. But some small, shame-faced part of her shied away from the self-insertion element - how would it look to the people who read it? So she'd changed herself into a girl named Mia, Toby into Mia's little cousin Isabelle and Karen into an overbearing Aunt Chloe. Every other element of _Labyrinth _was left exactly the same.

Sarah wasn't entirely surprised when the story won first place, but she _was_ rather pleased. Her father and Karen insisted she put the money away for college and took the family out for a fancy dinner to celebrate. Sarah blamed them for her burgeoning addiction to oysters and pink champagne.

What Sarah didn't expect to come out of her win was the sudden and intense interest in _Labyrinth_ from her Art and Drama teachers, who had been on the panel of judges.

"Have you considered turning _Labyrinth_ into a script, Sarah?" Miss Middleton, her Drama teacher, asked her as they were packing up after class one afternoon.

"No, not really," Sarah answered, shoving some cushions into a box with her elbow. "It was just a creative writing piece. I haven't given it much more thought past being a story."

"Well, I think it has a lot of potential!" Miss Middleton said. Sarah wasn't sure how her teacher had gotten across the room so quickly, but there she was, looking for all the world like a child trying to convince her mother to buy a toy.

"Er, really?"

"Yes!" Miss Middleton nodded so vigorously her blonde curls bounced around her face. "In fact, I am very interested in using it for the senior year performance!"

_The senior year performance? _Sarah was completely taken aback. "Oh… um… I don't know," she said hesitantly, wondering how to wriggle her way out of it without upsetting her teacher. She wasn't sure she was comfortable with the story getting _that_ much exposure…

Miss Middleton suddenly had a sly smile on her face. "You know Sarah," she said, her tone wheedling, "Transcribing the story into a script would count as extra credit towards your Drama marks…"

Well, when she put it like _that_...

A couple of days later, Sarah was cornered by her rather vague, but very friendly Art teacher, Miss McKinnon.

"You know Sarah dear," she said, gesticulating with her braceleted and be-ringed hands as Sarah worked in front of her easel, "I was talking to Maureen about the senior year performance. She was wondering if I could help with costuming, make up and concept art."

"Oh?" Sarah asked, keeping her tone polite and neutral. She had a feeling where this was going. But at least it was an opportunity to earn some extra credit towards her Art marks as well...

* * *

_**Chapter 3:** It was as Sarah stood there in the dark, empty wings, watching the Class of '76 perform the first scene and reaping the rewards of almost a year's worth of hard work, that she realised she wasn't alone._

"_Hello, Sarah." The silky whisper came from the darkness directly behind her._

_She knew that voice._


	3. Summer, 1977

_**Author's Note: **Apologies for the long delay since my last update! All sorts of boring, real life things came up. I won't bore you with the details. But, I come bearing a slightly longer chapter! With Jareth in it!  
_

_As I mentioned in Chapters 1 and 2, this fic is completely written, and I will be putting chapters up as I go through the notes from my beta-reader and make amendments accordingly. I'm aiming for weekly updates. Roughly. *cough*_

_Many thanks to jamethiel_bane, who is a far better writer than I will ever be and agreed to take on the MASSIVE task of beta-reading this fic because she is a kind-hearted soul (and also because I begged her)._

_Rated M for lime, references to mental health and adult themes in future chapters._

* * *

Sarah watched her classmates throwing themselves into the opening night's performance of _The Labyrinth_. She stood in the quiet, comforting darkness of the empty wings, able to see everything but not be seen herself. A mixture of excitement, nerves and pride knotted up her stomach, making her thankful she'd passed up the hot dogs and milkshakes offered by Miss Middleton a couple of hours ago.

This was _her_ play and hundreds of people were watching it! Sarah smiled to herself, trying not to be smug and just barely managing it. Aw hell, maybe she deserved to be a _little_ bit smug. Just a little bit.

She was glad not to be performing. It was a confession she'd never have thought she'd be making. It was amazing how two tiny years could change your outlook.

Miss Middleton gave her a surprising amount of freedom and artistic licence over _The Labyrinth _during the course of the year, allowing her to co-direct, produce and run the front of house.

The months passed by in a happy blur of set design, construction, costume-making and preparation. There were the early Saturday mornings spent trawling flea markets for clothes and props. There were the lunch hours spent in the Home Economics classroom hand-stitching hems and trim (_so_ much sewing, Sarah's fingers would never be the same). There were the countless hours spent at fellow Drama students' houses devoted to make up development and trials (Sarah now knew how to exactly match lipstick to skin tone and blend yellow and green concealer to cover even the most stubborn acne). Then there were the late nights and early mornings spent alone making programmes, posters and tickets. And, of course, there were all the Drama classes at school where she was directing the play alongside Miss Middleton.

Sarah wasn't the only one who had been working hard. There were many lunch hours, late evenings, school holidays and even two school-run drama camps devoted to rehearsals of _The Labyrinth_. It had consumed everyone's lives.

If Sarah thought she knew what hard work felt like before this, she had been desperately misinformed. If she hadn't felt the love and passion for the project that she did, she would surely have burnt out only a quarter of the way in. As it was, none of the cast were getting as much food or sleep as they technically should have been.

It was amazing how much satisfaction Sarah got from working behind the scenes and how simple, routine things became sources of accomplishment. The recollection of sitting hunched over her desk till 2am three nights a week designing the advertising material, for example, gave her a warm glow of pride, especially now that the tendonitis and stiff neck were a distant memory. The fact that she was currently sitting on an A+ overall for Drama was also contributing to her positive attitude.

About halfway through the year, the play stopped being a purely academic endeavour and became more of a personal crusade. Sarah wanted to ensure the audience could connect with the story on an individual level. She felt that _The Labyrinth_ had something special to offer to everybody. All her spare time was devoted to making it _just right_.

Sarah leaned her shoulder against the wall, twisting her fingers together tightly enough to cause pain as she watched the Class of '76 perform the first scene. All this work, all this _preparation_ and she was feeling surprisingly anxious and powerless. _Stop it Sarah_, she told herself. _You can't control what's happening on the stage. You can't control your classmates. Relax. Enjoy it. You've put almost a year's worth of work into this night._

She took a deep breath to try and calm down and almost choked. That scent. Cloves, leather and... something else. Like night air after a lightning strike. Jareth's scent. She'd always thought it was what magic smelled like.

She had no business remembering that smell so clearly.

The skin on the nape of her neck began to prickle painfully and she struggled to keep breathing. The air around her was suddenly thick and smothering, keeping her rooted to the spot. Her heart began to pound. She wasn't alone in the wings.

_he'sherehe'sherehe'shere_

"Hello, Sarah." The soft voice came from the darkness directly behind her.

_ohgodjesusNO_

She started to spin around, squawking inarticulately, but she was seized from behind and hauled back against a wiry, unforgiving chest.

"Shhhh." A leather-gloved hand clamped over her mouth as she attempted to struggle and call for help. Silvery blonde strands of hair slid over her shoulder as her assailant leaned down to speak directly into her ear.

"Hush Sarah, I am not here to hurt you."

Sarah told the hand gagging her exactly what she thought of that statement, and tried, rather ineffectually, to stomp on his instep. The chest against her back and shoulders vibrated with a quiet chuckle as he shifted his feet beyond her reach.

"Truly," he insisted, drawing his hand away from her mouth, but not before tracing her lower lip with a feather-light touch. The shock, and her tingling mouth, was enough to silence her for a few moments.

"I am merely here to witness the fruits of your labor," Jareth said, his other arm joining the first in locking around her waist, holding her still. "I'm sure you don't mind." It wasn't a question.

Sarah scrambled for a response. It was incredibly disconcerting to be _actually touching the Goblin King_. Deep breaths only succeeded in overloading her senses with his smell, reinforcing her awareness of his proximity. Her brain, unhelpfully, was short-circuiting and playing gaudy technicolour loops of the aforementioned Goblin King leaning over her in the Cleaner's Tunnel, except with his poet's shirt off.

She wasn't even going to think about thinking about why that image came so easily. No siree. Nope. No way.

_Stupid hormones. Get a grip, Sarah!_

"Why?" she snarled out at last, squirming for a bit of distance to clear her head. No dice - it was like being held by a marble statue. "Why would you want to come and see some two-bit high school play I directed, even if it _is_ about the Labyrinth?"

"I wanted to see who you cast to play the Goblin King, of course," Jareth said, as if it should have been obvious.

Sarah paused to consider the truthfulness of this rather flippant answer. She couldn't help smiling a tiny bit. The Goblin King's _ego_ certainly hadn't changed. She relaxed the tiniest, most infinitesimal amount. If he could be facetious, he wasn't truly angry.

_Perhaps he isn't here for revenge after all..._

An affronted sniff interrupted her thoughts. "He is nowhere near good-looking and talented enough to represent me," Jareth said. "Look there, Sarah! He can't even manipulate the crystals properly!"

He sounded so indignant, Sarah had to stifle a giggle. She watched her friend Alan—tonight playing the Goblin King—awkwardly roll a couple of heavy glass paperweights in his hands.

_At least he's not dropping them like he did in rehearsal!_

"Don't be such a jerk," Sarah reprimanded him in a whisper, sounding braver than she actually felt. "I had to work with what was available."

"Jerk? Hmph. At least you got the apparel more or less correct," Jareth said grudgingly, as Alan theatrically threw his cloak back to reveal the tight breeches and open poet's shirt. "And that is a passable recreation of the King's pendant, I suppose."

"You _suppose?_" Sarah asked him in an acid voice, trying not to bristle. She had worked for _days_ sketching that pendant, then sculpting it from clay and painting it just so. _So_ many trash baskets full of crumpled sketches and countless lumps of misshapen clay. Not to mention many, many awkward moments getting up close and personal with Alan's bare chest to make sure the pendant hung at the perfect angle.

Getting things just right with only her memory as a reference point had been hard work, dammit, and Sarah wasn't about to let this snooty Goblin King walk all over her efforts!

Jareth didn't answer her. Apparently, he was distracted. Sarah could hear his breathing close to her ear and twisted her neck to catch a glimpse of his shadowed profile. He was staring intently at the stage.

"My, _my_." His voice was dangerously soft and Sarah quickly looked away, holding her breath. Nothing good ever came of that tone.

"I do believe those are the _very_ garments you were wearing in my Labyrinth," Jareth continued after a short pause. "Don't tell me you kept them all this time?"

Sarah's cheeks felt warm. She couldn't answer, since it was so obvious that she _had_ kept them all this time. She had pretended she found them in an op shop and felt they were exactly what Mia should be wearing.

She felt an additional stab of embarrassment as Mia began to whine about unfairness to the Goblin King.

Jareth chuckled softly and the sound, so close to her ear, made the nerves sing and prickle all the way down her neck and arm. "It would appear you've pulled no punches in the portrayal of yourself Sarah dearest, even if you have renamed three of the players. Fascinating."

_Dearest?_ Sarah's stomach erupted with somersaulting butterflies. She tried to fold her arms over it – unfortunately, they came to rest over the top of Jareth's. Quickly unfolding them again, she held them awkwardly in front of her torso, elbows bent. _This is ridiclous!_

(Upon later reflection, Sarah would kick herself repeatedly for missing the opportunity to ask just _why_ a Goblin King would pay such close attention to the clothing of a 15 year old girl. So many opportunities to call him a creepy old pervert and a stalker, all wasted!)

Another straining, wiggling attempt to free herself from the Jareth's grasp proved unsuccessful. You just couldn't take this guy by surprise. _He's probably enjoying seeing me struggle like this. _She gave up with an exasperated sigh and let her arms hang at her sides.

A long silence stretched between them, practically saturated with an unspoken _why did you do it?_

"I did it because I wanted to tell the story as accurately as I could," Sarah said.

"And why did you want to tell our story?"

"I don't know, really," Sarah said slowly, not missing his emphasis on 'our', but not quite knowing what to make of it. "I suppose some part of me didn't want to forget, and growing up seems to do that to you. It's easy to forget the things that made you happy when you were younger."

"Happy? I believe you spent the majority of your time in my Labyrinth feeling exceedingly vexed, rather than happy."

"Oh, you know what I mean!" Sarah said huffily. She spoke to him honestly and all he wanted to do was argue semantics. Her arms twitched, wanting to fold again and she wormed a hand between her waist and his arms, looking for a way out.

She could almost feel Jareth's smirk in the dark.

"I didn't expect it to turn into this," Sarah said, working her fingers against his arms until they cramped painfully. _Goddamit! Is he made of granite or something?_ "It was just a story… but then people got so excited about it, and now here we are, in the middle of a play."

"Ah, but stories are never _just_ stories, Sarah. Words have power. I thought you'd have learnt that by now."

Sarah bit back a sarcastic response and considered his statement for a moment. The only words she'd managed to wield in the Labyrinth with any real power were... at the end.

She was never able to think back on the destruction of the castle without a sharp twinge of guilt. Or, the look on his face as everything came apart. It had featured heavily in her dreams ever since.

"How is... the castle?" she blurted, before she lost the courage.

The silence that followed was so tense, Sarah felt her neck muscles beginning to spasm. She badly wanted to pull her hand out from under his elbow, but was afraid to move.

"The castle is undergoing... renovations," Jareth replied at last, just as Sarah was beginning to wonder what on earth she could say to salvage the conversation.

"Er... renovations?" _Did he just make a joke?_

"Yes. As is the rest of the Labyrinth. Not that it's any of _your_ concern."

_Ah. Not a joke then._ Sarah tried to ignore the instant forest-fire burning her cheeks as the image of the ruined Goblin Kingdom blossomed in her mind's eye. So ruined, in fact that they were still rebuilding, years later.

_And it's all your fault too. Can't forget that, Sarah._

"Is there... anything... that I could do to fix it?" she whispered.

"The Labyrinth is recovering well enough without any more interference from you," Jareth said. His voice was cold and Sarah was painfully aware that she was trapped here, at his mercy. Was he holding her more tightly than before? It seemed more uncomfortable to take a breath now than it was a few moments ago.

It would be such an easy thing for him to hurt her, even kill her, if he really wanted to. He could stop time right now, snap her neck and no one would stop him. No one _could_ stop him.

"I thought that the Underground depended on human belief to thrive," Sarah said, forcing her voice past the pounding heart in her throat. It came out thin and a little panicked. "What if this play stirred up some of the belief you needed?"

Jareth snorted derisively. "I would hardly think so. You give yourself _far_ too much credit, Sarah."

Sarah, chagrined, remained silent. For a long while, the only sound in the darkness around them was their combined breathing. She counted her breaths in an attempt to calm down. After eleven breaths, she felt his arms loosen the tiniest fraction, enough to let her fill her lungs comfortably again.

After twenty eight breaths however, the silence began to feel strained.

"I edited The Words out of the play," she said, hating both the way she felt compelled to justify herself to him, and the obvious sulkiness that crept into her tone.

"Such a pity."

_That snarky son of a-! Well. Two can play at that game._ "I couldn't take anything for granted you see. I don't mind trying fixing the damage I've done, but I'm _not_ handing you any more potential goblin citizens."

"Clever girl." Jareth's tone was condescending.

"I am not a _girl_," Sarah retorted snappishly, then wished she could tear her own tongue out. In the brief quiet that followed, Jareth's gloved hands moved to lie flat against her stomach then slid purposefully upwards, over her ribcage. They ghosted over her breasts, so close she wasn't sure if they touched her or not.

Sarah didn't know whether she _wanted_ them to touch her or not.

Teenage embarrassment, however, couldn't prevent the indignant squawk that burst out of her mouth. She spun out of Jareth's grasp, facing him with still-flaming cheeks and arms crossed defensively over her chest.

"No, I suppose you are not a girl," Jareth said, his voice full of indulgent amusement and something else that made her skin tingle. "Not any longer."

Sarah couldn't think of a single way to respond to that without re-entering dangerous territory. So, she pressed her lips together and turned her back on him again.

After a silence that seemed to stretch on forever, Sarah looked back over her shoulder to ask Jareth how long he intended to stand there ogling her classmates.

But he had disappeared. All that was left was a faint dusting of glitter on the worn linoleum where he had stood.

Somehow, Sarah felt a little disappointed that he hadn't said goodbye.

* * *

_**Chapter 4:**__ Sarah supposed that Goblin Kings were not in the habit of accepting help from petulant teenagers that were largely responsible for trashing their kingdoms in the first place. But surely, it was _fair_ that she wanted to make amends?_

_She had lain awake many a night, mulling over the possibilities. What if she could bring the story of _The Labyrinth_ to the world? To children especially? To girls craving a fairytale they could immerse themselves in? _


End file.
